$5 Irish Flag Apron

I knew right away I'd adapt this for St. Patrick's Day. So I picked up kitchen towels in the right colors at the Dollar Store, and 3 yards of sparkly shamrock ribbon for $2 at Michael's.

Unfortunately, the only towels in the right shade of green also had stripes, and I wasn't going to just settle. So I "sewed out" the stripes like this:

But you'll have way more luck than I did, right? Once you've got the towels all set, you have two choices. Horizontal half apron:

Or vertical full apron:

The trickiest part of this wasn't sewing out the stripes—it was matching the sizes of the cloths. I wanted them to be about the same width and height--but all three kitchen cloths were different widths, and all three had different motifs on them. Fortunately, other than the stripes, these decorations were near the edge, so I was able to cut them off when I made them the right width (and hemmed them. I hate hemming).

The orange cloth was the largest, so after I cut off the colorful stripes, I ended up turning it sideways and folding it in half, making it into pockets for my apron. The biggest pieces of the left over cloths I hemmed to make into rags to keep in those pockets.

A couple more apron tips:

Remember that the top of an apron is narrower than the waist and bottom or it gapes when you tie it behind your neck. I fixed this with some vertical darts from the top to the bust points.

Sew on the neck strap(s) first and try it on to determine the best place for the waist ties. (It's also a good idea to try it on when pinning the darts in place, too.)

And be careful when sewing over the hems:

But there was more waywardness for this craft. It came in a . . . well, a stupid way. I keep my sewing stash in two big drawers that are within my kids' reach--two locking drawers. This works great . . . until you lose the key. So also for this craft, I picked a real lock for the first time. Hairpins--not just for hair.